


It Hurts

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Series: Obi-Wan "The Therapist" Kenobi and How He Changed Everything [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Death, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Constipation, Funeral, Gen, Hugs, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurt/Comfort, Mando'a, Minor Character Death, The Force, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22871470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: Anakin can't get what Obi-Wan had said out of his mind, and it's becoming a problem.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Obi-Wan "The Therapist" Kenobi and How He Changed Everything [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584874
Comments: 34
Kudos: 955





	It Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So this installment took a lot longer than I had anticipated by far. But finally, it's done and here it is. Thanks bunches to my vode who are also my beta readers. You guys are the best!
> 
>  **Warning:** The first portion of this story deals heavily in death and depicts a funeral, and they are mentioned again later in this story. Reader discretion advised.

_“I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”_

_“You’re my brother-”_

_“-one of my best friends-”_

_“-you are welcome to join me.”_

_“I would never turn down your company.”_

A bolt of red streaked through the air past Anakin’s ear.

He jerked away, ducking for better cover. A bitten-off curse tumbled into the air unheard from his lips as he slammed into the stone wall.

This was not the time, nor the place to be getting distracted.

It was hard, though. The words had been clouding his thoughts and swirling their way through his mind for two days since Anakin had first heard them. They’d been said with an earnestness to them - a tone that laid bare their truth and honest nature.

In the twelve years that Anakin had known his former master, he’d never quite heard the man sound like that. Or, he’d never exactly said anything like that to _Anakin_. Sure, that stung a little, to know he’d never been afforded that sort of transparency before, but… Well, he was getting it now.

And those words were full of promises of something that looked so… bright to Anakin.

Anakin could always tell when something was bright. Everything had a sort of… well… _quality_ to them, in the Force. It was sort of like how lights had a dimmer. They could be set lower or higher, and some things just shined brighter in the Force than others.

Obi-Wan had always been relatively bright to Anakin, but this? _Now?_ Now, he was perfect. He wasn’t hard to see, per se, but neither was he dark. It was something in between and different - unusual - but somehow _good_. Anakin could feel that, clear as day. This was good, and not in the same sense that the Order was “good”.

The Order was pure, not necessarily good. Most of the Jedi themselves were some form of good, but whatever Obi-Wan had started doing was something totally different.

It called to Anakin in a way few things ever had before. It felt _right_ and Obi-Wan was willing to teach me again. Not just because Anakin was his padawan that he’d promised a dying man that he would train, but because Obi-Wan _wanted_ to and he _wanted Anakin_ to join him.

Truthfully, he could figure only very few of the things Obi-Wan had truly changed about himself. Most of the noticeable changes were with the men. The 212th. It was in their success rates as they skyrocketed and in their casualty rates as they plummeted. It was the way they sat together and talked and laughed and cried and remembered.

It was in the way Anakin felt the edges of a shredded planet knit back together as the life forces gathered upon it kissed the wounded parts of themselves and healed, if only just a little bit.

He couldn’t say for certain what Obi-Wan was doing differently for himself, but he certainly hoped to find out.

Anakin wanted this almost like he needed air to breathe, or how he always had to protect Padme and Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan had said they’d talk soon, but… when was _soon_? Was he expecting Anakin to come to him first? Did Anakin have to show how badly he wanted this before Obi-Wan would tell him anything?

“Master!”

He blinked, a hand drawing him back into the current issue at hand.

Anakin growled at himself, his padawan’s face coming into focus in front of him.

“They’re wiping the floor with us out here!” Ahsoka yelled. Her big blue eyes stared up at him, looking for an answer.

Very rarely did Ahsoka show how much she actually relied on Anakin. Here, he could see that need in her eyes. He felt the realization hit him in the chest that he still had a fifteen-year-old who needed him to be a master.

Anakin didn’t know how to be a master, even after all this time.

“What do we do?” she asked, shouting to be heard.

The droids were getting closer; their blasters and tanks drowning out the world.

Anakin wasn’t even entirely sure what the current situation was, or how bad they were looking. But judging from his padawan’s eyes, it was pretty bad.

Rex appeared at his elbow before he could even begin to formulate words.

“General Skywalker!” Rex greeted. He was out of breath.

His armor was covered in black scuff spots and coated in a layer of brown-gray dust.

“Captain-”

“There was a transmission from Coruscant. General Kenobi and the 212th are on their way,” the man explained.

Anakin frowned.

“Why didn’t they contact me?”

“They said they couldn’t reach you.”

Anakin could have kicked himself. Of course. He was so distracted that not only was he nearly getting himself shot, but he was missing comms from the Council as well.

Oh, was he gonna be in for it when this was over.

“Good,” he sighed, shifting against the stone wall at his back. “How are we looking, Rex?”

Anakin could almost see the grimace Rex wore beneath his helmet.

“Not good,” the captain admitted. “We’re taking a real beating.”

“That’s what I said!” Ahsoka cut in.

Anakin shook his head. He tried to make the motion seem casual, but he was really hoping to clear the last of his brain fog from his mind. It didn’t seem as if it was working well.

“No, you said they’re wiping the floor with us.”

“Same difference,” the girl grumped, crossing her arms.

Behind Anakin, a clone cried out. He heard the sound of laser piercing armor and then the thud of a body hitting the dirt. A small, glowing spot in the Force went dim and sputtered out altogether.

Anakin flinched.

“Master?”

He schooled the expression off his face.

“How far out is Obi-Wan?” he asked, directing the question at Rex. He didn’t like ignoring his padawan, but now wasn’t the time to deal with it. She didn’t need to worry about him, and they had other, bigger things to deal with.

“Should arrive within the hour.”

Anakin nodded to himself, thinking.

“Tell me honestly: think we can hold out that long?”

“We can make it!” Ahsoka insisted.

Rex was just a second slower to answer.

“We can pull back and hold a line, but staying here… I’m not sure General Kenobi would find much left of us when he hit the atmosphere.”

“What? That’s-”

A stern look at the Togruntan padawan cut the girl off.

“Have everyone fall back.” He turned his eyes North where they’d come from. He pointed out a raised ridgeline. “See that natural barrier? We’ll form a front there and hold the droids at bay until our reinforcements arrive.”

Rex nodded. “Yes, Sir!”

Between one second and the next, he was gone, ordering words into his comlink and looking for his captains and lieutenants to pull their respective companies and platoons back to the ridge.

“Master-”

“Not now, Snips,” he said. “We’re getting out of this with every man we can. Now come on”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward with him. They sprinted for the ridgeline, deflecting blaster bolts where they could and pulling at troopers who were slower than others.

Several more lights went out as they retreated, one of them just barely out of reach. Anakin gritted his teeth and pushed onward, supporting a wounded man who’d stumbled in front of him.

“Come on!” he called at the men around them. “Move it, move it!”

It felt a little bit like forever by the time he was over the ridge with cover and relative safety.

Ahsoka vaulted the rocks just a second later and landed at his side.

He settled the trooper he’d grabbed against the rockwall. The man was breathing heavily. There was a charred black hole on the left side of his abdomen.

“How bad is it?” Anakin asked, stooping to peer through the black visor of the helmet.

“It’s- ah,” the trooper gasped, “it’s not to-too bad.”

Anakin nodded. That may or may not be true, but they didn’t really have time to worry about it for now. Not until he knew that he could get the man to Kix or the rest of the medical team.

“Alright,” he sighed, shifting his gaze over the ridge and side to side. Troopers in various combinations of white and blue were pouring over the ridgeline. The droids advanced on them still, but they were slow. There were clones already stationed against the ridge, shooting down clankers and sniping at the commanders.

“You got a name?” he asked, turning his eyes back down to the man in front of him.

“D-Dip…”

“Okay, Dip. You’ll be okay. We’ll get a medic over here and you’ll be fine.”

“Y-yes, Sir.”

“Good man.”

Anakin straightened a little. He attempted to focus his attention over the rocks down at the droids, but he made a point to keep an eye on the flickering brightness that was Dip.

“So what do we do now, Master?” Ahsoka asked, looking down at the army of droids.

“We hold the line until Obi-Wan gets here,” he repeated. “That’s all we can do.”

*

With their new vantage point, keeping the droids at bay was significantly easier. They were losing less men, and the blinking out of lights slowed down considerably.

A field medic, whose name Anakin didn’t catch, made his rounds eventually, taking Dip off his and Ahsoka’s hands. Anakin bit his lip, almost hating having to watch the injured trooper be lifted and carried away. It was for the best, after all. But it still made him uneasy, with the way Dip’s signature still flickered and flared repetitively.

It was exactly fifty six minutes later when Anakin’s comlink chirped with an incoming message. He almost missed it again, but Ahsoka yelled at him to answer the call.

“Sky- damn-” He grunted, deflecting a stray blaster bolt back at a B1 unit. “Skywalker. Go ahead.”

 _“Anakin,”_ came Obi-Wan’s cool and collected tone.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin’s heart leapt in his chest. Hearing his former master’s voice was not always the highlight of his day, but truth be told, the 212th could not have arrived with better timing.

 _“Good to know you’re still alive down there,”_ the man snarked.

“Oh, ha ha. Very funny.”

 _“The 2nd Airborne Company is on their way to you,”_ Obi-Wan informed him, suddenly all business. _“Ghost and I will drop behind you shortly. Ocean Company is already on the ground. How’s the legion holding up?”_

Anakin sighed, the sound coming out somehow relieved and tense at the same time.

“Not sure how many we’ve lost but it’s… not pretty. We’re holding the ridgeline, which has worked to our advantage for now.”

_“Just another minute and we’ll be with you.”_

The connection went quiet, leaving Anakin to refocus his attention back on deflecting bolts and giving orders to troopers around him where necessary.

Less than a minute and there was the comforting sound of approaching fighters from behind them.

The 212th’s 2nd Airborne Company was truly something to behold, if Anakin was asked. They were one of the most elite flight and bomber contingents in the whole of the 7th Sky Corps. Each platoon had their strengths, and they were never shy to use those to their advantage. And, sure, no one ever should be. But these guys were good at what they did.

Just before the fighters flew overhead, Anakin’s comlink chirped briefly.

_“On your six, General Skywalker.”_

The droids never even stood a chance.

All things considered, for as small as Obi-Wan’s battalion was in comparison to the 501st, there was no doubting the things they were capable of. With the extra support of some of the very best and elite soldiers (with what was likely the new highest success record), it was easy to rally the troops and finish what they’d started.

Anakin didn’t catch a glimpse of Obi-Wan until the fight was nearly over. What he saw had him pausing for just a split second, completely stunned.

Obi-Wan was surrounded by a squad of troopers (all of whom wore a slightly more orange shade of gold paint than the rest of the battalion). There were no droids near them and with nothing much to do except wait for the last of the clankers to be finished off, he surveyed the area, giving orders into his comlink. He was probably already thinking about cleanup. Anakin smiled. That was the Obi-Wan he knew.

But what was odd was how he was wearing armor again. He hadn’t done that in quite some time. Anakin wasn’t sure when it had changed, but one day the chestplate and the pauldrons were gone, the white boots replaced with standard Jedi issue brown leather.

(His commander had seemed much less than thrilled about it.)

So to see him in white armor once again was a little shocking.

Even more so were the tags on the shoulders.

One showed off the symbol of the Jedi Order in a shade of red that Anakin personally thought was gorgeous. That one wasn’t abnormal, to be honest. The other, however, was significantly harder to make out from a distance, but it held quite a bit of gold and orange paint.

Obi-Wan turned away from Anakin, pointing out across the dusty field.

There was another tag on the back of his chest piece, but before Anakin could look too hard at it, a trooper stepped in the way.

“Master, look out!” Ahsoka yelled.

Anakin ducked in time for the bolt of red laser to shoot right above him.

 _Damn it._ Not again.

He couldn’t afford to keep getting distracted like that on a battlefield. He should know better!

Anakin turned and ran back towards the fray. It was growing smaller by the second, but he needed something to do with himself. At least until he could find something _else_ to do with himself.

*

The battle was over almost before Anakin fully realized it was. His body worked on autopilot, his brain floating somewhere just outside the moment.

He could almost _hear_ Obi-Wan’s words of admonishment.

_“Pay attention to the Living Force. Keep yourself in the here and now.”_

Anakin almost wanted to be huffy about it - only barely remembering that the man actually hadn’t said _anything_. Yet, at least.

Strangely enough, they found themselves in a situation they rarely had the time for.

The 212th was the more elite, specialized group out of the two of them, but the 501st was bigger with more firepower and men. It meant both he and Obi-Wan’s contingents of troopers were kept nearly equally as busy.

But for once, there was time.

He wouldn’t know exactly what their casualties had been until he got a chance to sit down and talk with Rex and his commander, but he knew it was no small number. Squads formed up as much as they could, those who weren’t completely decimated and torn apart, and went about the gruesome and painful job of collecting all their fallen men.

Anakin helped where he could, reporting wounded troopers so the medics could find them, calming them as much as possible and providing what healing he could with the Force. It wasn’t much, as it wasn’t his strong suit, but it made him feel less useless.

He was no stranger to death, of course. People died all the time. They were in a war and wars took lives. Tatooine saw too many losses to count. Some of his friends, he remembered, and more of his neighbors, had disappeared in the nights, never to be seen again. No one was sure if they’d been sold, stolen, or just ran away. Not that running would help them any, other than relieving them permanently of the sorry plight they lived in as slaves.

That didn’t mean it was ever fun to walk through a battlefield, searching for survivors and usually finding dead men.

Too many of them wore bright, unpainted armor, not a streak of blue to be seen. Others were painted over again and again, showing off tiny little should-be-fun tags and blue patterns and black tally marks.

Really, he just tried not to think about it.

He didn’t have that luxury today.

There were too many of them. Too many losses. Too many dark, blank roles ripped into the fabric of the world. A heavy, deep seated loss permeated the Force, sinking into the very dirt they walked on.

It took an hour or longer - Anakin really wasn’t sure - to get as many of their fallen men gathered as they could. It wouldn’t have been convenient to bury them, and in any case, that wasn’t the troopers’ prefered funeral method for their brothers-in-arms. So they prepared for a funeral pyre.

The 501st gathered in a huge circle, thousands upon thousands of men in blue and white. Anakin stood somewhere within the main ring with them, if only because that’s where he’d been jostled to. He wasn’t sure when, but Ahsoka appeared at his side, Obi-Wan right next to her in his new armor. Rex stood with Cody not too far away.

As the pyre was set aflame by a couple of volunteers - shinies who couldn’t really be considered shinies anymore - a voice rose up on the other side of the circle.

_“Kote!_  
_Kandosii sa ka’rta, Vode an._  
_Coruscanta a’den mhi, Vode an._  
_Bal kote, darasuum kote,_  
_Jorso’ran kando a tome._  
_Sa kyr’am nau tracyn kad, Vode an._  
_Coruscanta a’den mhi, Vode an…”_

Anakin thought the words sounded familiar, even if he had no idea what they meant. But the times he could almost remember hearing them, the song was loud and chanting - filled with rage and strength. It had been all shouting voices and the slap of thousands of hands against plastoid armor.

Now, it was nothing like that. It was slow and somber, starting from one man and spreading through the ranks, until the words rang all around them. It swelled into the air and floated into the sky, carrying out across wartorn fields. The song held something heavy in it, laiden with grief and loss, but lifting as if in farewell of those who could no longer hear them.

Anakin let his eyes slip closed, just listening, and wishing he knew what the words meant.

The funeral pyre was an odd spot of nothingness within the Force. Something was happening, shifting, but he couldn’t quite tell what. But the lights gathered around in their circle were bright. The presences seeped with grief, bringing unbidden and unwelcome tears to Anakin’s closed eyes.

As he listened, the flames of brightness swelled until instead of there being thousands of individuals, they all resonated together as one.

When the song ended, Anakin was loathe to open his eyes.

There was a pause as everyone stared into the flames.

Then, as one, the men began to speak.

_“Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc. Ni partayli, gar darasuum.”_

Individual voices broke out, one after another.

“Blaze.”

“Caf.”

“Kayden.”

“Gneiss.”

“CT-9103.”

“Starling.”

“Jagger.”

“CT-7530.”

And so it continued, name after name after name. Some were just designations - CT numbers.

Fritz. Mortar. 37-7761. Freddo. Ace. Axel. 8957. Bear. Colin. 4476. 2280. 31-0149. Butterfingers. Dumdum. Gonzo. 5181. Astro. Shiny. Kevin. 02-139.

He tried to listen and keep each name, each number, in his mind for as long as he could. But they were replaced by another name, another number, another _trooper_ currently resting on the pyre as their brothers said their farewells.

Eventually, he wasn’t even sure when, the names and numbers came slower and slower, until there were no more to be said. Or no more that were known.

Then-

_“Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la. Ret’urcye mhi.”_

Everyone fell into silence.

They stood, watching the flames.

A platoon of squads were left behind to keep the fire under control, but the rest were sent off with other duties. There was other cleanup to handle, wounded to tend to, intel to gather.

Anakin couldn’t focus.

Obi-Wan took his arm gently and pulled him along into a transport to be taken back up to the _Resolute_.

*

It wasn’t until Obi-Wan was directing Anakin through the open door of his quarters that he realized they must have left Ahsoka down on the planet. He stopped suddenly, pushing against his former master’s gentle hands.

“Ahsoka,” he said, turning around and aiming for the landing bay.

Obi-Wan moved into his way, shaking his head slowly. There was a soft look in his blue eyes and in the tired lines of his face.

Force, when had Obi-Wan stopped looking like the young man Anakin met all those years ago?

“Rex has Ahsoka. I’ll get her later,” Obi-Wan placated, encouraging Anakin into the room. “She’ll be fine for a little while.”

“But I-” he tried to argue.

Obi-Wan’s hands on his shoulders became more insistent.

“I will get her in just a few minutes. But for now-” Anakin stumbled slightly as they enter his room, his head feeling light and floaty for a second, “I’m more worried about you.”

Anakin allowed himself to be sat down on the edge of his bed, grumbling.

“I’m fine, Master.”

The auburn haired man gave him a dubious look, but blessedly didn’t argue the point.

Anakin was fine, after all. His focus just wasn’t… up to par today. It happened. Obi-Wan should be telling him any minute now that he just needed to meditate and breathe. If he meditated for awhile, everything would be fine. He just had to work on his focus more - learn to clear his mind and heed all those repetitive lessons his master had tried so hard to instill in him.

Any minute now.

Any time.

Any… second?

Except that Anakin was still sitting on his bed, looking across the room and not even seeing the wall he was staring at. And Obi-Wan was busying himself at the little table where Anakin had plugged in an electric teapot, saying nothing. (He had the teapot because, damn it, Anakin might not like the teas Obi-Wan liked to drink, but some of them were okay. And caf got boring when it was just that or water.)

Obi-Wan set the teapot to warming, waiting for the whistling that would come in a moment.

Was he… not going to lecture him? Maybe he was just waiting for the opportune moment.

_“If you want to succeed as a Jedi this way, then you are welcome to join me.”_

Again the words floated across Anakin’s consciousness, this time not entirely unwelcome or distracting. He frowned just a touch, looking across the room at the man he regarded as a father figure. He may not always act like it, and Obi-Wan may certainly get on his nerves a lot, but he couldn’t deny that he loved the man. He was the first person outside his mother he could call family, all those years ago.

And maybe that was so terribly against the Jedi Code and everything he’d been taught since he was ten, but… Anakin couldn’t help it. He loved people, and that was how it was. He wasn’t always a _people person_ and sometimes he could be a bit _much_ , but Anakin had been taught to love others. His mother had made sure he knew that others deserve kindness.

Sometimes… it was hard to remember that in a war.

But he wasn’t going to forget her teachings so easily, even if the Council considered it _attachment_ and called it _forbidden_ and a _path to the Darkside_.

He couldn’t.

A mug pressed into his hand, warm and steaming and just this side of uncomfortable to hold.

He looked up, finding Obi-Wan staring down at him with a sad sort of smile.

“Thank you,” he muttered, wrapping his fingers around the cup despite the discomfort in his left hand.

Obi-Wan sat on the mattress at Anakin’s side, sipping at his own mug of tea. His grimace told Anakin he wasn’t a fan of this particular blend.

Anakin took a hesitant sip of his own, accidentally burning his tongue as he usually did. This was one of his favorites. It was one of the stronger brands Obi-Wan had introduced him to - good for mornings or after interrupted sleep.

It was not, however, one of the ones Obi-Wan favored.

He couldn’t help the tug of a smile at the corners of his lips.

“We really couldn’t be any more different if we tried, huh?” Anakin asked quietly.

He liked his tea strong and maybe a little bitter. Obi-Wan preferred his sweetened and steeped for exactly some set length of time Anakin couldn’t remember anymore. Anakin liked caf and Obi-Wan would rather expel it from the airlock, if it wasn’t for how it kept his men from grumping through the day. Anakin liked his food spicy - the hotter the better. Obi-Wan preferred sweets, believe it or not. (Most people wouldn’t.)

Obi-Wan graced him with a less sad smile.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe on the surface…” he mused.

“Oh yeah?” Anakin challenged. “Have you suddenly picked up an affinity for rebuilding speeders and fixing droids?”

The man huffed a little laugh.

“No, not quite,” he admitted, “but I do know a few men who would be happy to see me try.”

“I dunno if you’d be very good at it,” Anakin teased against the lip of his cup. “I might have to show you a thing or two first.”

Obi-Wan’s smile was much brighter now.

“If you’d like to,” he hummed.

And- well, that was a thought, wasn’t it? Obi-Wan had never shown much interest in Anakin’s hobby of building - and certainly not of flying or racing. But now he sounded genuine, like there was nothing that would please him more than if Anakin sat him down and explained how to rewire and program a droid, or fix an engine.

He went quiet, staring at the wall and sipping his tea some more.

The _Resolute_ was never a _quiet_ ship, and certainly it was never devoid of life and Force signatures, but right that moment it felt incredibly empty. Anakin could feel them - _see_ them - some ways off in the ship, milling about in the control rooms and down with the engines and in the medical bay.

More were approaching on transports, if he focused and reached out enough. None of them felt like Rex or Ahsoka, so he assumed they were still planetside.

He wondered if the funeral pyre had burned itself out yet, if Tracinya Platoon and its squads had been released to other jobs that still need doing.

There were definitely things Anakin should be doing right about now.

He lowered his mug to rest in his lap, moving like he might get up.

One of Obi-Wan’s hands was on his shoulder again.

“Obi-Wan,” he sighed, “I should really-”

“I know,” the man cut in. “I, too, have things that I need to take care of soon. But I had hoped to talk to you for a moment.”

Anakin hesitated.

“We’ve… been talking?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, a fondly exasperated look on his face.

“About what just happened.”

The younger Jedi waited for the man to continue. What about that needed talking about?

Obi-Wan sighed.

“Anakin, are- are you alright?”

Anakin opened his mouth to speak, but found no words to respond, because- What? Of course he was alright. Why wouldn’t he be alright? He was just a little bit distracted, and that certainly wasn’t anything new. But he could handle distracted. It was the _Force_ that was the problem-

No. Anakin was fine.

But still, his voice wouldn’t respond.

Obi-Wan’s blue eyes deepened with worry.

“Anakin…”

“I’m okay,” he forced out, if only to attempt to put his master at ease. Obi-Wan didn’t need to be worrying over him.

The older man sighed again, going silent for several seconds.

Then, just as Anakin is about to try and leave again, he spoke.

“Have you ever seen that happen before?” Obi-Wan asked.

See… the funeral?

“Not-” he swallowed, pausing. “Not exactly. I think I’ve heard that song before, but…”

He shook his head. He couldn’t place it in his memory.

Obi-Wan nodded.

“It’s called _Vode An_ ,” he offered. “That translates to ‘Brothers All’. It’s an ancient Mandalorian war chant that is sung in Mando’a. Apparently, Jango taught it to the earliest batches of clones during their training on Kamino. They passed it on to their brothers, and, well- Now it’s something like tradition for some troopers.”

“For funerals?”

“Actually, they sing it before going into battle. This is a modified version, missing the second verse. It’s usually much livelier than this was.”

Anakin nodded, the vague memory of loud, shouting voices now making more sense.

“Does the 212th sing it before they go into a fight?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Obi-Wan said after another sip of his tea. “But they’ve been coming up with their own traditions, lately.”

Anakin remembered a flash of hundreds of troopers sitting together and talking until it was so late, the sun began to rise. They had felt as much like individuals and as one, single whole then as his own men had not long ago. It felt something like a mystery, and yet like it shouldn’t be any other way.

And now that he was interested and his mind focussed, he suddenly had more questions.

“What was it they said after that? With the names?” he blurted, curious. “It sounded like they were saying goodbye…”

Obi-Wan noddeed.

“Yes, they were,” he confirmed. “In Mandalorian tradition, there is a saying of remembrance they say, usually in the evenings. It translates to: ‘I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.’ It is followed by reciting the names of your loved ones that you have lost.

“Our troopers have modified the tradition a bit. They say this at funerals, more than they do daily remembrances. After, there’s a phrase that they say together that means: ‘not gone, merely marching far away’. It’s something of a belief that their brothers are scouting ahead for them, keeping watch and ensuring their safety. Then they say goodbye.”

Without realizing it, a burning started up in Anakin’s throat, aching and stinging, keeping him from saying anything in response. He stared down hard at his cooling mug of tea, trying to control his breathing and push away the again unwelcome tears.

He would not cry.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no emotion, there is-_

“Anakin?”

Anakin gritted his teeth, his jaw and throat still aching.

“Anakin-”

“I’m-” he swallowed against the burn in his throat. “I’m _trying_ , Master, just-”

A hand brushed against his own, taking the mug out of his hand. In its absence, his fingers clenched into a fist on his thigh.

“Anakin, look at me.”

The words were not harsh. They were not demanding.

They were so, so very patient. They were soft and warm and gentle.

The wall on the other side of the room began to blur.

No!

Just- stop.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There-_

“Emotion, _yet_ peace, padawan mine,” Obi-Wan said, his tone low and comforting.

Anakin blinked, swallowing against the tears he wouldn’t let fall. He turned his eyes to the man at his side.

“What?” he croaked. He hated the way his voice broke on the word.

“A line from the code we teach younglings. The code I absolutely should have taught you first,” Obi-Wan explained.

Anakin frowned. He shoved away the sharp, aching pain growing in his forehead.

“Why- why would you have-?”

Of course, Anakin knew the code younglings learned in the creche. He’d heard it plenty the times he’d spent afternoons with the children as a padawan. The kids weren’t always very good at reciting it, but he knew it.

But… it wasn’t different, was it? It meant the same things. So why would it matter which version Obi-Wan had taught him?

His former master’s eyes held a wishful sort of sadness to them as he looked upon the younger man. Anakin felt just a little self-conscious under the gaze.

Obi-Wan looked just a bit too much like his mother, in that moment.

The tone he spoke with next was near defensive.

“What?”

Obi-Wan sat quietly at Anakin’s side another few seconds.

Just when Anakin was becoming sure Obi-Wan wasn’t going to answer his question, the man spoke.

“What are you feeling?”

He frowned, furrowing his eyebrows and sitting up a little straighter.

“What does that matter?”

“I’m curious.”

Anakin rolled his eyes.

“Oh, big surprise. My feelings are another one of your little experiments-”

“Anakin, please don’t.” Obi-Wan’s voice is soft and small when he cuts him off. Anakin’s snide expression melted from his face. He’d never heard Obi-Wan sound like that.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” the older man began to explain. “But I want to be here for you, and-”

“And what?”

Obi-Wan looked up at the ceiling briefly, his eyes going slightly red around the edges. He took a deep breath. He looked down again and locked eyes with Anakin as he began to speak.

“Anakin, I have done you a great disservice, and… I want to make it right. You told me you wanted to join me, right? Succeed as a Jedi this way?”

Anakin nodded mutely, knowing he was staring, his expression shocked. He still wasn’t sure what this entailed exactly, but… it seemed better than anything else he’d tried in twelve years.

Obi-Wan breathed out a little huff of relieved air. A little smile quirked the corners of his mouth up under his beard.

“Okay. Then this is how we start. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Anakin recognized the attempt at a joke for what it was: putting him and Obi-Wan both at ease. He gave it a grin like it deserved, because Obi-Wan trying for him would never not make Anakin smile.

But then it fell, because-

What _was_ he feeling?

The flickering brightnesses that went out and left blank spots tore at his chest like a grater. The nothingness of the pyre pulled down on his lungs and made it hard to breathe. The sound of his troops singing settled in his stomach like rocks - like saying goodbye to his mother’s headstone. Knowing what his men said to send away their own brothers made his heart clench painfully, made his throat burn and his eyes sting.

It all hurt too much and set his whole being to shaking. He was sure if he lifted his still-flesh hand, it would shake. His nearly trembled like shivering in the cold.

It sucked and he hated it. It felt too much like the nightmares of his mother and his concerns about Padme and his fleeting thoughts of Ahsoka. Thoughts and dreams and nightmares about how things could go so utterly wrong. They could die or be taken. It was like his recurring nightmares from when he was younger - just a teen, a padawan - of all the ways Obi-Wan could die.

Anakin didn’t like those feelings. He hated the dreams, the thoughts.

He preferred to push them away and pretend they don’t exist. He covered them up with confidence and an arrogant smile. Sometimes the Force wouldn’t take those from him so he locked them up in a little box and threw away the key. A good Jedi didn’t feel things like that. Obi-Wan would never.

And Anakin very rarely wanted something the way he wanted Obi-Wan’s approval.

So he didn’t feel those things.

Except that he did.

And Obi-Wan wanted to know about it. Not to tell him he’s bad or that he’s failing, but just to hear about it and- and help.

But the fact remained: Anakin didn’t know what he was feeling.

What he did know was that it hurt.

“I-” He huffed a fragile breath. “I don’t know, but- it _hurts_ ,” he admitted.

“Alright,” Obi-Wan offered. “Can you explain that?”

Anakin looked away, knowing he was probably curling into himself just a little. Force, what was he? A child?

He shook his head.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did, and Obi-Wan deserved an answer that made sense.

“Do you want to?”

He shrugged.

Obi-Wan’s voice, when he responded, was soft and too-gentle. The sound seemed to crack something in Anakin’s chest.

“That’s okay.” Obi-Wan shifted, reaching out a hand to Anakin slowly. “You don’t have to.”

He glanced over again at his former master. He sat at Anakin’s side, one hand reaching towards him and hovering in midair.

“If I asked to hug you…?” Obi-Wan started.

Anakin didn’t wait for the thought to finish.

He slumped into himself, letting himself lean to the side. Obi-Wan met him there, tucked Anakin into his side like he had when he was little. One hand rested against his hair, petting at it slowly. The other arm wrapped around Anakin, keeping him steady and secure.

He let himself rest his head on his master’s shoulder.

Obi-Wan smelled vaguely of tea leaves and harsh, standard-issue bar soap underneath the dirt, grime, and sweat of battle.

“I know it hurts,” he mumbled into Anakin’s hair. “It’s awful, I know.”

The words shifted at the pain in his chest, bringing newfound, not entirely unwelcome tears to his eyes.

“But you don’t have to do this alone.”

The tears slipped down his cheeks, slicking the plastoid-alloy chest plate against his face.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this installment. Hopefully the next one won't take so long to get out to you guys, but I make no promises. If you have ideas for interludes or just little things you'd like to see addressed or done in this story, please let me know. I love hearing your guys' ideas.
> 
> Mando'a Translation:  
>  _Kote! Kandosii sa ka’rta, Vode an. Coruscanta a’den mhi, Vode an. Bal kote, darasuum kote, Jorso’ran kando a tome. Sa kyr’am nau tracyn kad, Vode an. Coruscanta a’den mhi, Vode an…_ \- Ancient Mandalorian war chant, _Vode An_. Translation: Glory! One indomitable heart, Brothers all. We, the wrath of Coruscant, Brother all. And glory, eternal glory, We shall bear its weight together. Forged like the saber in the fires of death, Brothers all. One indomitable heart, Brothers all. We, the wrath of Coruscant, Brothers all.
> 
>  _Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc. Ni partayli, gar darasuum._ \- Daily remembrance of those passed on. Translation: I am alive, but you are dead. I remember you so you are eternal.
> 
>  _Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la._ \- Mandalorian phrase for the departed. Translation: Not gone, merely marching far away.
> 
>  _Ret’urcye mhi._ \- Goodbye; literally: Maybe we'll meet again.
> 
> If you're interested, I have a blog for this series over on Tumblr. You can [find it here](https://obiwanthetherapistkenobi.tumblr.com/). Come say hi if you'd like!


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